Anathema
by IllustratingAuthoress
Summary: Anathema: something or someone that one vehemently dislikes. The Shinigami Women's Association has a seemingly indestructible camera. The Shinigami Men's Association is getting desperate. So they call in a certain Substitute Shinigami and it all degenerates from there. Arguments, humiliation, assassination attempts, and zombies.


**I decided that I should stick with humor instead of anything deep or emotional or psychological or angsty. So I did. Ah, correction: I _tried_. And I would appreciate it very much if you told me how I did. You can even simply rate it from one to ten, with ten being the best and one the worst. _That's_ how desperate I am for feedback.**

**So yeah.**

**I don't own Bleach, but I think my mom has some hidden in some obscure corner in the cleaning supplies closet in the garage...**

* * *

_Anathema: something or someone that one vehemently dislikes_

* * *

It was a well-known fact in Seireitei that Kuchiki Rukia was the Shinigami Women's Association's Most Valued Spy. Or Super Secret Insider Agent. Or whatever it was you wanted to call her. The SWA couldn't quite make up their minds.

But yes, it was a well-known fact indeed – which kind of defeated the point, but who were the male shinigami to complain? The SWA had taken to rather persistently stalking several of them. It was generally quite…unnerving (Kurotsuchi Mayuri & Creepy Co's opinions did not count).

In fact, according to Kusajishi Yachiru, self-appointed head of the SWA, they actually did _not_ know the definition of both "privacy" and "personal space".

(Of course, that could also simply just be her severely limited vocabulary talking.)

It was also quite a known fact that Rukia possessed a camera of sorts with amazing abilities, able to be pulled out from…somewhere…at a moment's notice and miraculously surviving all desperate attempts to destroy it, footage and all completely intact. Heck, it had even survived an incident where Kurosaki Ichigo had stolen it and taken it with him during a skirmish with some Arrancar. And then he had a rather unfortunate accident while sparring with Abarai Renji. And _then_ he had a rather destructive encounter with Zaraki Kenpachi.

Each "incident" just happened to have occurred consecutively and caused quite a bit of collateral damage.

The camera (or The Camera, as Ichigo had rather redundantly dubbed it) had escaped completely unscathed. Unnaturally pristine, as a matter of fact.

Ichigo and his opponents, needless to say, had not – especially when the SWA (and a certain bunny-loving midget) had found out. Heads had certainly started rolling _then_.

(Not literally, of course. Yamamoto-soutaicho had stopped them from doing _too_ much permanent damage. Something about war efforts…)

And that is how the oh-so-very esteemed members of the Shinigami _Men's_ Association found themselves attending the first official meeting in a thousand years (or, actually, nine hundred sixty-eight, to be precise).

In the underground tunnels.

Oh, joy.

* * *

Yamada Hanataro was a humble man (he was over a hundred years old, after all, despite all contradictory appearances) of humble needs and humble wants. As long as he had a nice place to sleep, eat good food, and hide from the Eleventh's thugs who had nothing better to do than beat up some of the Fourth's unseated officers, he was quite content, thank you very much.

That was why he was so reluctant to become involved with the SMA's plans to rid themselves of the "abominable atrocity of an image-recording optical instrument". Or the "terribly un-beautiful contraption" or the "monstrous bane of our existence" or simply "anathema". Whichever you preferred to call it. The SMA, like their female counterparts, couldn't quite come to an agreement.

But anyways, he had never been the focus of the SWA's attention (and was quite glad of it) and therefore had no reason to inevitably invoke their apoplectic wrath.

(Poor Hanataro was obviously quite blissfully oblivious to the SWA's pride and joy – a rather extensive library of a large variety of yaoi fanfiction.)

Even if poor Ichigo, whom Hanataro idolized, was right in the thick of it.

So when one troop of shinigami deployed for this mission of extreme importance came back only half-clothed (the bottom half, thankfully), flesh more shredded than intact, covered in lipstick, and pride completely demolished, looking as if they had been through a full-blown fangirl catfight and back, Hanataro could only shake his head and patch them up as best as he could (Unohana-taicho and Kotetsu-fukutaicho were liable to do even more damage rather than heal them).

After all, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and the SMA had just "scorned" about ninety percent of the female population in Seireitei.

* * *

Kurosaki Ichigo was not a patient man (teenager, actually, but what kind of teenager _was_ patient? "Man" made it sound better – more dramatic) by any means. (Nor was he kind or compassionate or friendly or humorous or generous or optimistic, but that was _completely_ beside the point.)

He also wasn't exactly stealthy. Or subtle. Or _any_ of the qualities to be involved in, and he quotes, "super-secret top-priority missions". He had bright orange hair and a zanpakuto shaped like a gigantic meat cleaver (okay, not exactly – Zangetsu was huge, of course, but he was much more elegant than a _meat cleaver_ and had a very different shape as well, and Zangetsu would _kill_ Ichigo – not literally, hopefully – if he _ever_ agreed with the larger portion of Seireitei's opinions on his appearance).

So he was quite surprised when he was enlisted by the SMA to partake in the, and he quotes again, "super-secret top-priority mission", or as someone with a bit more _eloquence_ would say, "The highest-priority mission of all time".

Apparently they had been having quite a bit of trouble with destroying The Camera – they were either headed off by inadvertent academy students, or by the SWA's intricate security system, or by the SWA themselves, or by the resulting explosion of another failed attempt at annihilating it. So after three weeks of failed attempts, they had finally decided to ask the shinigami-daiko for help next time he visited Seireitei, even if he was not a member of the SMA.

When they revealed just what it was that the SWA took pictures _of_, Ichigo agreed.

Something niggled in the back of his mind, insisting that Seireitei get their priorities right, but he ignored it. What could possibly be more important than preventing public eternal humiliation via blackmail and/or an overly persistent _women's_ organization with a popular monthly newsletter read all over Seireitei? An egotistical megalomaniac with a god complex and evil, insane plans for triple-dimensional world domination?

_Che. As if that'd ever happen._

* * *

After a week of unsuccessful "Assassination Attempts" (the new official title the SMA finally agreed on), Ichigo was getting fed up.

No matter what they did, all their efforts to destroy "Anathema" (another recently made official title – "Assassination Attempts on Anathema" certainly had nice ring to it; alliteration always worked) failed, with a big fat "F".

So Ichigo decided that if all their (attempted) subtle endeavors had failed, perhaps it was time to try _not_ so subtle endeavors now.

The SMA refused. Apparently they didn't want the SWA to find out that they were trying to destroy their prized possession.

Ichigo felt like banging his head against the nearest hard surface. They were all idiots of immense proportions if they somehow were oblivious to the fact that the SWA had known from the beginning of this hopeless not-so-stealthy mission when they got caught _every single freaking time_.

Although most of the shinigami were absurd, asinine, blockheaded, brainless, daft, dim, dimwitted, dopey, dumb, dumbass, fatuous, foolhardy, foolish, half-baked, half-witted, harebrained, idiotic, ill-advised, ill-considered, imprudent, inane, ludicrous, mindless, nonsensical, pea-brained, pointless, ridiculous, senseless, silly, stupid, thickheaded, thoughtless, unintelligent, unwise, vacuous, witless, and wooden-headed (courtesy of the thesaurus), but this display of pigheadedness certainly took the cake.

Although the one when they followed every single one of the assassinated Central 46's orders without a single question, like a herd of sheep, without ever figuring out anything was wrong came pretty close.

But Ichigo had never been one to sit around and follow orders anyway. So he screwed the SMA's as well.

Most people (everybody) said that Ichigo was horrible with reiatsu control, which was definitely very, very true (even _Renji_ was better at Kido than him! Well, not by much, but still…). Most people _also_ said that as he had terrible control, therefore he was terrible at sensing others' reiryoku, which was only _mostly_ true. Yes, Ichigo was bad at sensing reiatsu, but apparently that particular category only included acquaintances and strangers. For some reason, he could sense his close friends and family perfectly fine, almost unnaturally well, able to find them anywhere in Karakura and perhaps Seireitei if he'd ever really tried.

So he honed in Rukia's reiatsu (near the Thirteenth Division barracks) and rushed out to find her in a flit of shunpo.

* * *

It was just a perfect, sunny, and most importantly _normal_ day in Seireitei with not a cloud in the azure blue sky, with not a Hollow in sight, and even better, no Arrancar invasions and no one to rescue from corrupted governments.

Rukia was on her way back to the Kuchiki Mansion for some time with her nii-sama. She smiled. With her nii-sama, with whom she had had a very (very, very, very) distant relationship until Ichigo had some along and knocked some "big brother sense" into him.

Ichigo, who had crashed into her life and changed it all for the better. Well, there _had_ been a few tough spots, but Ichigo had always pulled through…

Ichigo blurred into view in front of Rukia, intercepting her on her walk back to the Kuchiki Mansion.

"Oi, Rukia."

"Ichigo!" Rukia yelped, startled as the subject of her thoughts appeared right before, before regaining her composure. She snapped, "Don't scare me like that. What do you want?"

"Your camera," Ichigo said, bluntly and to the point.

"My camera?" Rukia asked innocently. "What camera?"

"You know; the one that the SMA has been trying to destroy for a month? The one that the SWA has been guarding ferociously? Ring any bells?"

"What do you want it for?" Rukia said guardedly. "It has important evidence in it."

Ichigo scowled (more than before, at least). "I _know_ what's in it. That's why I'm definitely gonna Getsuga Tenshou its ass to Hueco Mundo. I sincerely rue the day I ever taught you to use Photoshop."

"I'm still surprised I managed to work it out, seeing as how horrible your teaching is. But it is _me_, after all," Rukia said smugly.

Ichigo raised a skeptical eyebrow. "And I suppose the few hundred times I taught you how to use a juice box until you finally got it don't happen to count, do they?"

"That was just _your_ bad teaching showing, Strawberry!"

"As if! _You_ just couldn't figure it out, and your damn womanly pride won't let you admit it! And _don't call me Strawberry_, midget!"

"I'm _not_ a midget, Strawberry!"

"Midget!"

"Strawberry!"

"Midget!"

"Strawberry!"

"_Midget!_"

"_Strawberry!_"

"MIDGET!"

"STRAWBERRY!"

"MIDGET – ow! Damn it, Rukia! Why do you have to be such a violent-prone midget?!"

"That's what you deserve! I'm _not_ a midget! I'm just vertically challenged!"

"Yeah, yeah, just keep believing whatever false euphemism Byakuya's told you – ow! Rukia!"

"Apologize to nii-sama!"

"But it's true –"

"Strawberry...APOLOGIZE!"

"OW! Fine! I'm sorry, midget!"

"To _nii-sama_, baka!"

"FINE! I'm _sorry_, Byakuya! Now STOP KICKING ME, MIDGET!"

"STRAWBERRY!"

"MIDGET!"

"STRAWBER –"

"Wow, guys, Ichigo I can understand, but _you_ were the one who said that we were being immature, Rukia…"

_"SHUT _UP_,__ RENJI!"_

Yup, just another normal day in Seireitei…

* * *

"Finally," Ichigo said and sighed. It had taken a loud argument with Rukia, several extremely painful and bruising kicks to the shin, and a three-way tussle with Renji _and_ Rukia before he had been able to discreetly slip "Anathema" from Rukia's alert guard.

Looked like sneaky_ had_ been the way to go after all.

Not that he'd _ever_ admit to that.

Besides, going into bankai and using multiple Getsuga Tenshou, like he planned to do, was not the subtlest thing ever. Although doing it in the cave...place...er, _thing_...where he had originally learned how to use bankai might make it less (a _lot_ less) conspicuous.

He could only hope it worked. After all, that thing had survived three explosive fights in a row.

"Bankai!" Ichigo took his "bankai stance". "...Tensa Zangetsu!"

He carefully placed the tip of his zanpakuto on the camera and took several deep breaths. "Okay. Ready."

"GETSUGA TENSHOU!"

* * *

After the large dust cloud cleared, Ichigo peered into the immense crater where his attack had collided with the ground.

The silvery-gray digital camera twinkled innocently back at him, perfectly intact and not a scratch in sight, practically good as new.

"W-wha...?" Ichigo blinked, stunned, unable to get his brain to connect to scene before him. "What the hell...?"

Suddenly, it all clicked.

"GAH! ZOMBIE CAMERA!"

* * *

**LOLz. :P Zombie apocalypse...**

**Please review and tell me what you think. _Please..._ *puppy dog eyes***


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